Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“Yet thou shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon the and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness and destroyed not the cities thereof, that opened not the house of his prisoners.”
Isaiah 14:15-17
From the teaching series, “Lessons from Isaiah”: Lesson No. 36
When a person becomes a prisoner to the ways of Satan, he never freely lets them go. To understand that statement fully, one must understand that “the ways of Satan” are not the ways of the flesh. Harlots are not “Satan’s ministers”; devoutly religious men are.
Devoutly religious men demanded that the woman caught in adultery should be stoned. These were the men whom Jesus described as “children of the devil” and he told them, “Your father is the devil, and you willingly carry out your father’s desires”(Jn. 8:44). We learn in Revelation 18:2 that Christianity is “a dwelling-place of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean bird, and a prison of every unclean and hated beast.” And once a person offers up his soul to the Christian religion, he has to overcome those demons and those unclean spirits which are in that place with him. Satan will not release his prisoners. There is but one way out.
Psalms 146 says, “Praise ye the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! While I live, I will praise the Lord; I will sing praises until my God while I have any being. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that therein is. Who keeps truth forever, who executes judgment for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord loosens the prisoners; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises them that are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. . . . Praise ye the Lord!”
If you are one of Satan’s prisoners, bound by the doctrines and traditions of men, you are in a helpless position; you are no match for the spirits around you. Your only hope is that Jesus will open your blinded eyes to see the death trap you are in, the gilded, and “highly esteemed” death trap called Christianity.
The Lord releases prisoners who have been taken captive by Satan, but only if those prisoners are willing to come out when he opens their eyes and opens the door. Are you willing to leave and be free?